For the summer 2018 issue of Target magazine, journalist Glenn Marshall writes about how digital reality technologies such as AR and VR are reinventing the role of the knowledge worker.

In the article, entitled “Developing the next generation of digital knowledge workers,” Marshall described how companies are embracing an emerging “no collar” workforce – completely rethinking how work will be done in a hybrid human-and-machine environment.

This new environment, writes Marshall, calls for taking a fresh look at workflow processes with an eye for giving both humans and machines the tasks that they each do best. And it means identifying ways that new “Industry 4.0” technologies can augment human skills, ultimately transforming the workplace and the worker.

Enter AR technology, a “fundamentally a breakthrough communications medium,” said Index AR Solutions COO Dexter Lilley for the article, which highlighted how Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS) is a company leading the way towards the “no collar” future thanks to AR and other technologies.

NNS is currently teaming with Index AR to create new commercial AR applications.

Marshall writes that NNS is using AR to replace reams of drawings and paperwork previously required to locate the temporary steel used during construction of aircraft carriers, for example. Mobile AR is also used in solutions that feature step-by-step instructions that include visual overlays of the correct information on specific equipment, making workers much safer and more efficient.

Target magazine is the quarterly publication of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), designed for senior and experienced manufacturing professionals who are continuously reinventing products and services to meet tough competitive challenges.

To read the full article from Target magazine, click here.